Article by Albano Nunes, member of the Secretariat of the CC and of the Political Committee

If there exists a complex reality, the understanding of which is not compatible with stereotypes, that is the People's Republic of China. Due to a historical past of thousands of years of civilization which, throughout the centuries astonished and amazed all those who came into contact with it. Due to its enormous population and great territorial extension. Due to the mosaic of nationalities and cultures of which it is composed. Due to the extraordinary importance of a revolution (1949) – which, after October, was the greatest achievement of liberation in the 20th century – and due to the furrows of its uneven path. Due to the original undertaking which is in progress, seeking to transform a backward society into a developed and prosperous country. Due to the growing and undeniable importance of China in the world's economic and political life. It is against this complex backdrop that the recent events in Tibet must necessarily be viewed, avoiding ridiculous simplifications, convenient forgeries or shameless displays of hypocrisy.

One cannot ignore that the impetuous development of the People's Republic of China, with its specific features, generates problems, tensions and contradictions, and it is up to the Chinese people to confront and solve them. But regarding the events in the Chinese Province of Tibet, there are specific causes that go way beyond all that. One example (Público, 08.02.22) suffices to make point: the visit of the Speaker of the House of Representatives of the US Congress, to north India, in order to meet the Dalai Lama, one of the most media-sponsored international bigwigs, who, polishing his evangelical look of a saint above all suspicion, is in reality a tool of imperialism against the stability and territorial integrity of the People's Republic of China. In Dharamsala, where the "Tibet government in exile" is based, Ms. Pelosi, a prominent member of the Democratic Party, reportedly stated that "the situation in Tibet is a challenge to the conscience of the world ", and that "if those who love freedom all over the world do not clearly speak out against China in Tibet, then we lose the moral authority to clearly speak about human rights".

But does the USA, the country which Ms. Pelosi represents, have any "moral authority" to make appeals to the "world’s conscience" and to appoint itself as the defender of "human rights"? Is it even worth taking time out to list the crimes for which US imperialism is responsible in Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, Kurdistan, the Balkans and in other parts of the world? Maybe not. But what is indispensable is to recall that the People's Republic of China – which only became a UN member in 1971, where the Chiang Kai-shek clique usurped its position, and was only officially recognized by the USA in 1978 – is targeted by a persistent and sophisticated campaign of interference (not forgetting the bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, during the war against Yugoslavia or the famous case of the spy plane intercepted by the Chinese Air force). A campaign which, from Sinkiang to Taiwan, passing through Tibet, seeks to destabilize this great country. That all this happened on the eve of the elections in Taiwan, objectively favouring the pro-independence adventurists (who ended up being defeated). That the Beijing Olympic Games are being used to exercise inadmissible pressure on the People's Republic of China, with even the President of the European Parliament brandishing the threat of a boycott and such an experimented journalist as Teresa de Sousa, writing (Público, 08.03.19) this piece of prose: "being a world power has a price which, for the moment, the West is still in a position to dictate".

Great are the challenges facing the Communists and the people of China. But the times of national submission and humiliation, the times in which in China itself there were places where entry was "forbidden to dogs and Chinese", those times belong to the past. No degree of hypocrisy can help the heirs of the opium wars and of the unequal treaties that inflicted so much suffering upon the Chinese people.